Mar
8
Working in all sorts of environments means having durable equipment. Moreso, working outdoors in the UK, or coverng events in what must be the wettest county in England, and where whimping out at the first sign of a tropical downpour would be severely frowned upon and certainly not professional !
After a particularly WET (atrociously WET !!) couple of incidents near lakes and a few days shooting in high humidity/Sauna / Rainforest type environments – it was time to dump the plastic shopping and food bags in favour of something more durable, skin tight, waterproof and protective.
It was time to Gimp my flash !!
Plastic bags are fine for lining bins and putting butties in, but flash heads and packs at over £1,400 a piece deserve something better. But what?
Sure, there are specialists housings which are waterproof to 1,000’s of feet, but I’m not going there. 8 foot high is about right, and whatever it is – it needs to be portable… can be fitted into an already bulging lighting case.. and be ready for action when needed. So what could it be?
Staring at rubber clad athletes at a recent event sent my mind wandering.. My flash units need wetsuits!!
After a lot of searching, measuring, deliberation and messing around a bit.. here we have it.
I decided to buy in a variety of diving boots. The shape of the boots pretty much matched the shape of my location flash, so it was just a matter of getting the right one to fit.
Quantum Trio waterproof cover
The Trio waterproof cover would probably be the less used of the covers made. Normally the Trio would be on camera operating as a controller, and as yet I still need to cut an access hole for the controls. It’s not very likely that the Trio would be used as a remote, especially with T5d-R’s and X5d-R’s available.
Quantum Trio with Waterproof Cover on a lightstand
Quantum Trio on lightstand with waterproof cover
The Trio waterproof cover fits quite snuggly around the body, but a little tight around the head. It’s a bit of a stretch to get it fitted, but once there it seems to work well.
Quantum X5d-R with waterproof Cover
Quantum X5d-R with waterproof Cover on a lightstand
Mostly, 4 of these types of lights would be used linked to the camera via radio control. The complete coverage of the flash head in rubber would not hinder the use or operation of the flash units since all settings are changed without touching the flash units. Of the two types of cover, I expect that this one will be used most. The cover around the reflector bowl is a more convenient shape which accomodates the reflector better and the larger size chosen to accomodate the additional radio receiver makes the cover easier to fit and remove.
On a seperate issue, there is potential for leaks to penetrate between the reflector and the mount, an 8mm neoprene washer soon sorts that out. I have a special order being made which should fit around the collar between the reflector and the head, just how much these are needed, or how effective they may be might be debateable, but if they might help to prevent water getting across the HV terminals, I’ll be happy knowing they’re there.
Update:
Recently I was faced with the same rain problem, after a night of shooting a swim (yes, NIGHT) I managed to grab this shot of the covers in action.
Quantum X5d-R Waterproof cover at a wet nightime event
The streaks on the image above are rain.
For anybody who’s interested, a Quantum Trio was being used as a controller using TTL which was firing two remote Quantum X5d-R’s also in TTL mode controlled by the Trio. The background light was a Lumedyne in an 800WS configuration.
The preparation paid off and here are a couple of photos from the event:
Competitive Open Water Swimming at Night.
Competitive Open Water Swimming at Night. (2)